We crawled out of the tent and geared up. We followed the American's tracks and found them brewing tea at 4.30 in the morning outside their tent. They had just gotten down. We nervously congratulated them and shouldered our very light packs- sin bivi gear and stove. We were going light and fast, and were ready for one long push. But at altitude you never know, so we were naturally a little anxious.






We stalled like teenagers avoiding homework by relieving our bowels in a crevasse. Patrice managed to drop his camera in the crack mid-cable. Thankfully it fell forward and avoided any faecal matter, but it was just out of reach and the crack was too narrow to accommodate a goretex clad arm.

After a little excalation and enchainment of various climbing devices with hooks, we managed to retrieve the camera. Now we had no excuses. We clipped on our helmets and got to work.

From the bergschrund, it was steep, 70 degree snow and ice. We pitched a short vertical section in the dark that was followed by 3 or 4 pitches of moderate mixed climbing through thin sections of ice and crumbling rock. Once above this, we took some coils each and started simul-climbing, keeping a screw or snowstake between us at all times.

We moved steadily up towards the huge band of seracs that hung above us. The early morning light gave us some exposure, but by the time the sun had risen, the clouds had blown back in and we had to dig through those as much the snow fluting that met us above the seracs. With no concept of time without the sun, we chipped away methodically, swapping leads when the first ran out of gear.






Peru is famous for its huge, snow fluted faces intermixed with good ice. The snow is quite warm and wet, coming from the jungle, and sticks to incredibly steep faces. We were deep in the middle of a flute, riding the soft ice where the snow forms into ice and swinging an axe is a pleasant experience. But it was monotonous. Kick, kick, swing, swing. On and on and on, for 500m. We couldn't see more than half a rope length and had no concept of where we were, so we just went up.

We eventually got off the treadmill at the rock band near to the summit. We saw Cassin's fixed ropes from 1969 when he first climbed the jagged summit of Jirishanca with a team of 10. A short mixed pitch landed us in the trench the Americans had dug. And I mean dug. The snow was rotten and sugary and for every 2 steps up, we fell one step back.

We reached their high point a 3.30pm, and looked at each other blankly as to what to do next. The summit ridge was only maybe 15m above us, but the snow was horrible. I decided to try and go higher and spent the next 30mins digging out a groove to gain 5 meters. From the top, the clouds had partially cleared and we still had a huge cornice to turn and more of the same rotten, soul soaking snow to dig through, so we called it off. If we continued for the few hours that it would take, we would be doubly late in getting back down.






So we began rappelling from V-threads. Down, down, into the night and thick clouds. We pendulumed left and right to find good ice rather than dig for it at each belay, and soon enough, we had no idea where we were. We ought to be close to the major serac band, but it never seemed to come. All off a sudden I rappelled over a roll and found the entire serac band on my left. It had been on our right on the way up.

What had happened was, while swinging left and right higher up, searching for ice, we had chosen a flute with a different aspect. 500M lower, it meant we were 200m further right than we wanted to be. That wasn't a really big problem, so long as we could keep going down, but we hadn't really paid any attention to where we hadn't proposed to climb.

Two rappels later, we discovered our descent had taken a very uncertain turn. We gazed over the precipice and wondered what lay below. The snow under the seracs above was sheltered and soft and made for building anchors difficult. We threw the ropes over and waited for some sort of clearing in the mist to see with our torches if the ropes hit the bottom.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah! Look! They touch, I think...” Patrice claimed as the wind shifted again and closed out the momentary visibility.






Dry mouthed with dehydration and apprehension, he lowered himself over and disappeared into the night and mist.
“We are Okay. For now anyway.”

I clipped in and rappelled to join the voice in the aether. We downclimbed a short slope to discover another serac we couldn't see to the bottom of. We moved left and right to try to see better, but to no avail. Above us, the previous serac loomed like a huge wave being paused in a movie.

We tried to build and anchor, but nothing would hold. We dug a meter deep to find ice, buried a garbage bag full of ice, snow bollards, snow stakes, but the snow was faceted and sugary all the way through. 40 mins later we finally got a t-slot to hold. It wasn't the greatest, but the best we could get. We thought we could see the bottom a few times, but weren't sure, so we dropped the ropes down and hoped for the best.

Patrice lowered himself over and casually looked up and advised me to, “Use your prusik doode.”
I laughed as I inched my prusik down the two ropes and understood what he meant. The serac was 45 degrees overhanging and I felt like I was in the belly of a whale. The ropes had reached and Patrice stood in knee deep powder at the bottom while the silence around us rang out.

We had some idea where we were now- on a hanging glacier, right of our climbing route. We made our way down back left, tired, disillusioned and resigned to more troubles. We had one snow stake left, and there wasn't any ice in site where we might make a V-thread.

The weather cleared intermitantly enough for us to gauge where we were, and soon enough we figured we were on the wrong side of 2m wide crevasse. On the other side and around a corner should be the top of our first pitch that morning.






The frog in my French partner prevailed and Patrice jumped across. I hadn't yet peered over the edge as I was belaying Patrice, but as he secured himself for my leap of faith, I gazed into it and saw nothing. It went all the way through to China for all I knew. It was bottomless.

Sure enough around the corner was our first belay, and we were home. A few more rappels and we could walk again on the glacier. It was around 11pm and we were relieved. Everything had turned out okay, but we both knew how the night could have been much longer, and more perilous. We were too tired to talk about it though. We still had 200m of elvation to gain to the sanctuary of our tent.

We saw the Americans tent and I saw the irony of them lying in their tent, happy to be there and not us, but I didn't think it was funny. I thought it was sad.

Stumbling across the glacier, Patrice was so tired he couldn't walk straight. I experimented with closing my eyes to sleep while walking, and I fell asleep. I had never been this tired ever before. Thankfully we were well acclimatised and other than exhausting us, we didn't have any real side effects.

Patrice was asleep before he even got inside the tent, but I melted some water and drank some hot Gatorade before collapsing.






We still had 7 days before Fischer, our donkey driver arrived to take us out, but motivation was low. So low, I wondered very seriously why I was even doing this and whether I wanted to do it anymore. With my system depleted, the diarreheo was back, and I spent all my time in the tent, the mess tent eating briefly, or at the latrine.

Five friends of Patrice's from France had arrived and they stimulated us a little, but being sick, I was a shell of myself. The altitude had taken away all appetite, and the thought of food disgusted my churning stomach.

We had cast an eye towards a new route on Rondoy that would be much more involved and required that we descend off the other side and trek for a day back to camp. If not that, then we had thought of going up the 6654m monster that is Yerupaja. In the state we were in, we didn't want to think about it. When we had some semblence of strength, we would consider it.






Eventually, I came back to life, but all movement was in slow motion, interspaced with frequenent breaks. My mind had rebuilt itself enough that I could look towards the mountains again. There was talk of Patrice, Pascal, Nico and I going for a push on Yerupaja. I hated the idea, but none the less I found myself dragging my feet up the morraine once again.

We had stored some gear up high and I prefered to hike up to climb rather than just to retrieve it. So I was in for more of the same treatment on an even higher mountain.

Here we go again...

To check out Part 1 on Rasac, click here